Netflix Puts Spanish Originals in the Spotlight
As streamers fight for ever-more limited market share across geographical territories, we’ve seen a wealth of strategies arise. HBO Max, for example, is currently engaged in a rather aggressive territory expansion. Netflix has been using its non-English language productions as a selling point in recent years, and now there’s even more ahead. To fill us in, we have Blake & Wang P.A. entertainment attorney Los Angeles, Brandon Blake.
Push for New Productions
In February, we saw Netflix co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, announce an ambitious $1B budget for Mexican productions, to be split over four years. Now, they’re offering the same for Spanish originals- $1B through 2029 for local content investment.
To date, Spanish titles have generated over $5B viewing hours
for Netflix, using partnerships with local storytellers and production outfits.
This includes several hits such as Society
of the Snow and Elite.
Spanish Successes
Spain itself, meanwhile, has been heavily encouraging investment in its audio-visual sectors, hoping to create more opportunities for Spanish-language and Spanish-origin productions across global screens. Modern Spanish productions are increasingly coming to life as co-productions with international partners like Netflix, targeting local content that feels authentic, but has a more global appeal.
We’ve seen South Korea take this “soft power” approach to magnifying its cultural outputs, with both South Korean cinema and music now familiar to vast audiences globally. Not to mention the 21 Spanish-speaking nations globally, equally as hungry for local content as more established markets.
Netflix already runs Tres Cantos, its local Spanish production facility, and has since 2019, with 2022 seeing significant expansion of its offerings. Today, it offers 10 sound stages for production. Tres Cantos also goes a little beyond traditional studio facilities, offering LED volume stages (made famous by The Mandalorian), allowing local Spanish filmmakers access to the sort of facilities that usually need a large location budget. No doubt Netflix’s new funding pledge will be well used for future productions.
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